Latest article is up. It's about the Fed Cup finals and the factors that contributed to the several top Russian players missing the tie. In case you're interested - I know women's tennis does not draw much, especially Fed Cup but in any case here it is, "Wacky Week in Women's Tennis..

Mertov has just put up an interesting article about fandom. http://my.opera.com/mertov/blog/show.dml/114749932It makes interesting reading on this very rainy day here in Washington where the rain is so heavy that one does not even want to drive to an indoor tennis court. , making it a great day for reading. He starts off with:"The most glaring examples of this "my-guy-must-be-the-greatest" anxiety come in the form of invented or overrated categories that have, in reality, no business in the GOAT debate if reason and objectivity were to prevail. This article will not make a case for any one player; instead, it will attempt to foreground the problems of partisanship's over-involvement in the debate by pinpointing to a few of those artificially created measuring sticks."

I have often wondered how strong crowd bias affects the players. I expect the pros get used to it and block it out. I'd personally hate it. I remember how at Cincy some years ago, I was sitting in an adjacent court when Roddick was playing Soderling in the central court and how, from the crowd noise alone, one could follow exactly how the match was going. I should add that I never enjoyed seeing Roddick play and was easily attracted to alternative entertainment . More positively, nowadays I find myself just wanting to watch the best tennis and get the most irritated when one or other of the top players doesn't seem even to be trying.

Most players love the crowd support, but there are also some who preferred not to have the crowd behind them, because they did not like to feel the pressure of having to please thousands of fans on-place who "aaaaaahh"d everytime they missed a shot or lost an important point. These are usually the players who don't perform as well in Davis Cup/Fed Cup competition as they do in individual tour events.

""... On the one hand, I agree that any player will thrive with the right coach who aims for long-term success and knows the player’s ‘soul,’ because coaching is not just telling the player to ‘follow-through’ or ‘move the feet.’ On the other hand, a player without a coach, and spending that period of time to reflect on his/her game while taking the time to do a sensible search for a new coach, has a better chance of success than a player who hires a coach simply due to the belief that having a coach trumps not having one.""

I suppose that self belief / confidence is the issue. And this issue can be the most elusive one of all. Making the right decision requires good judgement, and I suspect this is the very thing that is lacking when confidence is low.

Since you put up this article, Federer, whom you mention in your piece has taken on Stefan Edberg. From what I can tell, SE is to act more as an adviser than a coach in the conventional sense. Apparently he is to join the existing team for 10 weeks - Luthi is the coach. Your point about mentoring / advising seems most relevant to this partnership. It will be interesting to see how this collaboration works out.

His former coach, Paul Annacone is now collaborating with Sloane Stephens as you're no doubt aware.

And you also mention Djokovic, who has announced that he'll be collaborating with Boris Becker. Apparently, his existing coach Marian Vajda will remain on the team but Becker will be the head coach.

Mertov, you provide food for though yet again. When I took a peep at what this board is doing after several weeks away, I was inspired to log on as a result of reading what you had written, and to say " Many thanks" for the objective stance offered, whilst you acknowledge the bias of fandom.

This, above all, hits the nail on the head & I would invite commentators & sports journalists to reflect upon it:

""..... It is understandable that fans of particular players fall into this trap. After all, they have the right to be emotional, which is a major component of fandom. However, it is utterly worrisome that the leading figures in the tennis media fall into this trap and wrongly influence the public opinion.""

Nishikori hiring Chang, Federer with Edberg, Djokovic with Becker, Cilic with ivanisevic... Obviously these are players who want to focus on Slams, thus it makes sense that they are hiring legends with Slam titles. In the case of Cilic and Nishikori, they are looking to take that next step by performing better in Slams, probably because they feel like they have achieved some success in the lower levels, Cilic more than Nishikori. Federer has plenty of Slams but only one in the last three years, and he admits openly that the Slams are the main interests at this point in his career, so Edberg is not a bad choice at all. I am sure Edberg will try to push Fed to approach more but how much will Federer listen is another story. The odd duo here is Djokovic and Becker. Becker and Djokovic have similar personality traits in that they are both rambunctious guys. Becker will talk to you in your basement if he knows there is a camera filming! Djokovic also likes to be the center of the party. Game-wise they have quite opposite beliefs in terms of their play on court, I doubt Djokovic will all of a sudden become an attacker or serving huge (same can be said for Ivanisevic-Cilic collaboration but Goran can help Marin with the "low shoulders" appearance). It's hard to say what Becker will add to Djokovic. Yet, these coaching moves may not be game-related at all. I believe each player believes that having a Slam title holder in their box who can evaluate their game through the mind of a Slam winner will give them an edge that they did not have before.

If I were to bet, I would speculate that out of those 4 collaborations, Nishikori may benefit the most.

I think you are right in saying that Nishikori and Chang may be an effective match.

I was interested in your on-the-spot comment that Djokovic likes to be the center of attention. I would expect that Ferrer is just the opposite. Thinking back to a long history of eating in observatory dining rooms (which used to have plenty of big egos), I soon learned that, at any one time, any small group could usually only tolerate only one dominating personality and if there were more than one, sparks would often fly. I expect that it is more or less the same in tennis tournament locker rooms. Maybe Nole should leave Boris outside!

Your take on the Djokovic / Becker collaboration made me smile. These two do indeed love the limelight. It certainly is an intriguing one. I smile also because the previous coach - Vajda - seems the very antithesis of BB. Djokovic seems tohave gone for a complete contrast. My guess is that he'll try to hit the news not just with his game but via BB. Thus more of a marketing strategy than to do with his game, because, as you rightly point out, BB is pretty ubiquitous!

I hadn't realised that Nishikori had recruited Chang as his coach. I note your view, and look forward to seeing how this collaboration pan's out. Chang had a very effective baseline game, as I recall.

Your point about some of these collaborations being about something other than about the conventional game related advice is most interesting. Coaching is many things & perhaps all that is sometimes needed to boost confidence / performance is added insight & guidance.

Latest article is up. It's about the Fed Cup finals and the factors that contributed to the several top Russian players missing the tie. In case you're interested - I know women's tennis does not draw much, especially Fed Cup but in any case here it is, "Wacky Week in Women's Tennis..

My tech-able friend helped me through the set-up and our goal was to keep it as simple as possible, not put too many distractions on it. Since I mostly write for my friends (including the wonderful group here at Tennis4you, the only tennis forum I follow and participate in the "www" universe), and simply because I enjoy writing about tennis, there will never be any advertisements or unnecessary links on the site. Your feedback is always welcome! Feel free to use the "comment" section at the bottom of the article or send me an email.

The new site looks very nice . I've replaced the old bookmark.Shall get back at length later but have decided the following: (1) will miss Washington this year. (2) will certainly go to Cincinnati. (3) will not go to the Australian Open. I decided I could not take the heat .

Topics covered:2014 Australian Open --- The forms of the top men and women players --- Serena's comments and the lack of class on top of Women's Tennis --- Davis Cup --- International Premier Tennis League and the issue of "rest period" --- and more.

A couple of posts went up on MT-Desk since the last message here. One an Q&A type of post with a person working at a high position in a prominent company in the tennis industry, and the other one regarding Federer's (and his camps') hanling of the PR side of his tennis.

Things have been very quiet, almost moribund, at tennis4you recently. Not much in the way of discussion. Where are all the folk who were around a year ago?

But people should be aware that Mertov has now almost daily, on-the-spot reports from Roland Garros and they are well worth reading.Go to: http://www.mertovstennisdesk.com/

I sent the following to Mert after reading today's post-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Australian tears too!

Glad to see you are having such a good time. I was sad to note that Ebden, Tomic and Hewitt went out today although Matosevic is still there and he evidently did quite a victory roll on the clay, which unfortunately was not televised . As you may have heard, he picked up the nickname "Mad Dog Matosevic", which he dislikes intensely. Today's performance will not help. I wonder why Lleyton keeps at it. I think he just likes to compete and presumably his two slams always will get him a place.

Nice tribute to Llodra. I was at his match last year in Washington and this is what I wrote in tennis4you on July 31. It is touching to see this sort of family support."Alex, this would have been a lousy investment. I went to the match. There was very little S/V and what good stuff there was came almost entirely from Stepanek. Llodra could not do a thing right. He served badly, hit ground strokes out and his S/Vs were almost all aborted. Stepanek won 6-2, 6-1. It was over in no time. Llodra's 4-5 year old son was sitting in front of me and tried to save the situation by calling a plaintive "Papa" from time to time but it did not help. I could not even applaud Stepanek's good shots under the circumstances."